History Main / TheAlternet

** In an early script for the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' episode, ''[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E18ComingOfAge Coming Of Age]]'' mentioned that Mordock was a legend on the "Galactic Computer Network".

** The ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' episode, ''[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E11PastTensePartI Past Tense]]'' shows that 21st century Earth had a communication network called the Interface that required users to create an account, let them access the Net and watch news channels.
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode, ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E5TheGirlWhoDied The Girl Who Died]]'' has The Doctor defeating the More by making a video of them and editing silly music onto it and threatening to upload it to the Galactic Hub if they don't leave Earth alone. This is presumably some alien internet as the episode's set in the 9th century.

* In ''Literature/{{Terra}}'' by Music/MitchBenn, Fnrrn society has the Source, a planet-wide information network accessed through the tablets everyone carries. The scientist who invented gravity-manipulation published his work on the Source, so that no one group would have access to it.

* Around the same time that the US military was working on the ARPANET project that later birthed the civilian internet, the Soviets were also doing research into computer networks, as [[http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/why-america-beat-the-russians-at-building-the-internet-1784414330 laid out]] in Benjamin Peters' book ''How Not to Network a Nation''. As one could guess by that title, the project failed, and by the time of TheGreatPoliticsMessUp it had largely been abandoned. Peters noted in his book that, ironically, the Soviets' efforts failed because they ran the project in a competitive manner of a sort often associated with capitalism, causing it to be beset by infighting and competition between the many institutes and laboratories involved at the expense of the greater project, while the capitalist American ARPANET succeeded because it was run along centralized lines of a sort often associated with socialism, with a great deal of collaborative planning and state investment.

* The "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web Dark Web]]" refers to networks and websites that are not indexed in the World Wide Web, and thus, cannot be accessed through conventional web browser, requiring special peer-to-peer programs to access. It is notorious for being the internet equivalent of a WretchedHive, with its uses including criminal activities from selling drugs to distributing illegal digital content.

* The opening cutscene of ''VideoGame/MutantRampageBodySlam'' explains that "The Cybernet, a fiber-optic communication network, links everything. The rage of the Cybernet is [[BloodSport Body Slam]]!"

In the hands of the more prescient among these writers, their fictional proto-Internets are [[CallARabbitASmeerp nearly identical to what we now have in real life under a different name.]] The effects the Internet [[SocietyMarchesOn has had on society]] and the applications to which it's been put were anything but predictable, however. In the hands of writers whose imagination fell short of -- or just went in a different direction than -- reality, this can easily fall into {{Zeerust}} territory.

* The opening cutscne of ''VideoGame/MutantRampageBodySlam'' explains that "The Cybernet, a fiber-optic communication network, links everything. The rage of the Cybernet is [[BloodSport Body Slam]]!"

No relation to [[http://www.alternet.org/ the real Alternet]], a left-wing American political news website.

* In ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'', the worlds of the [[TheFederation Confederacy of Suns]] are united by the Interstar network, which is, basically, Internet InSpace. It uses massive spherical [[SubspaceAnsible Hyper-Frequency]] (or HF) orbital stations to generate stable FTL channels. The way Interstar works is by joining each HF station to the central Interstar node located in orbit of one of the Core worlds of the Confederacy, which then routs all signals to their destination. The Interstar bandwidth allows billions of people to connect to another world's sites via VR. The network is considered to be so important, that no one has ever bothered to protect either the HF stations or the central node (because it's unthinkable to destroy them). Naturally, the newly-discovered [[HumanAliens Harammins]] disagree, as their first act upon encountering humanity is to destroy the central node and, basically, end Interstar. Only after defeating them, humans use the ancient computer Logris as a new central node to restore the connection.

* ''Literature/FoundationSeries'''s ''Literature/FoundationsFear'': The "Mesh" is a network of computers and mechanical devices that do computational work, as well as {{robots}}. [[spoiler:And it has been inhabited by [[BrainUploading uploaded aliens]] since roughly the time it was created.]] A PortalNetwork of wormholes allow the Mesh to function across interstellar distances, but it's primarily contained on Trantor, due to being a CityPlanet.

* ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' has SchreckNet, a computer network set up by the Nosferatu when they got in early on ARPANET. It was originally meant solely for secure online communication by the Nosferatu, but by the time of 20th Anniversary Edition, it was opened up to other clans, who were able to access special Kindred-only sites through a combination of Disciplines and blood magic. U-turned with 5th edition, however, where general hubris from the Camarilla leads to the NSA discovering SchreckNet, which is then (at least, publicly declared to be) dismantled by the Nosferatu.

* ''Webcomic/LeifAndThorn'' tech runs on spells and crystals rather than electricity and silicon, so they have [[http://leifandthorn.com/comic/thorn-explains-the-network/ the Internet, but magic]]. Complete with [[http://leifandthorn.com/comic/summer-sunshine-3684/ Cracked-type article sites.]]

* European comics set in the ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicsUniverse often have Donald log onto "Ducknet". (Or "Anknet", or whatever the word is for "duck" in the language the comic is published in.) It's exactly like the real Internet, except for the name.

* European comics set in the DisneyDucksComicsUniverse often have Donald log onto "Ducknet". (Or "Anknet", or whatever the word is for "duck" in the language the comic is published in.) It's exactly like the real Internet, except for the name.

* ''TabletopGame/GURPSTechnomancer'' is Our World Only With Magic, so it has the regular internet. However, according to ''GURPS Magical Items 3'', it ''also'' has the [=ManaNet=], which uses ectoplasmic optic fibre cables known as mana conduits to transmit spells and {{mana}}. ''Pyramid'' magazine #115 updates this concept with mana-based counterparts of professional networks and crowdsourcing.

* Amateur radio hobbyists have developed several methods for linking computers that don't touch the infrastructure of the Internet (and quite a few more that do). [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AX.25 AX.25]] in particular is a link layer protocol (like Wifi and Ethernet) for linking computers over ham radio.

* In [[Creator/HarryTurtledove Turtledove's]] ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' series, [[TheReptilians The Race]] arrive on Earth with an internet of their own, which a select few humans gain access to.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' has the Cortex, which spans the star system in which the franchise takes place. It's used for both video chat and browsing information in the series. RPG materials explain that access is cloud-based and pay-by-the-minute for private citizens unless they can afford a dedicated source box. "Waving" someone comes up as a verb for messaging, the way "wire" is used about sending a message over a telegraph.

* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' has the Cortex, which spans the star system in which the franchise takes place. It's used for both video chat and browsing information in the series. RPG materials explain that access is cloud-based and pay-by-the-minute for private citizens unless they can afford a dedicated source box. Waving someone comes up as a verb for messaging, the way "wire" is used about sending a message over a telegraph.

* In Ronald D. Moore's [[OneEpisodeWonder unaired pilot]] ''17th Precinct'', a police procedural set in a {{Magitek}} world, there's something called "the stream", which looks like a tube of smoke. Newspapers and police reports can be found on the stream and magically "printed" by passing a piece of paper through it.

* Amateur radio hobbyists have developed several methods for linking computers that don't touch the infrastructure of the Internet (and quite a few more that do). [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AX.25 AX.25]] in particular is link layer protocol (like Wifi and Ethernet) for linking computers over ham radio. Unfortunately, both legal (you can't encrypt communications, nor can you conduct business, over ham radio bands) and technical (you can achieve a blistering fast 9800 baud if you're lucky) barriers keep it from going mainstream.

* ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'' is set inside the internet, and has multiple villains each trying to replace or remake it as they see fit. You end up visiting one of these ‘prototype’ Alternets as the game’s [[VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon final dungeon]].
** In a unique spin on this trope, one of said villains turns out to be [[spoiler:the ARPANET itself, having mysteriously gained sentience and come back online.]]

* The eponymous [[Franchise/TheMatrix Matrix]] can be considered as one, linking all the enslaved humans into one giant network that simulates the real world. Agent Smith even ends up "ingfecting" it and spreading like a virus.

* The eponymous [[Franchise/TheMatrix Matrix]] can be considered as one, linking all the enslaved humans into one giant network that simulates the real world. Agent Smith even ends up spreading like a virus.

* In the world of ''VideoGame/HypnospaceOutlaw'', the eponymous Hypnospace is the "sleeptime network" -- a version of the internet accessed through a BrainComputerInterface while one sleeps. It also has a competitor called "[=CyberWorldz=]".

* In ''{{VideoGame/Crusader}}'', the tyrannical global corporate hegemony [[MegaCorp the World Economic Consortium]] maintains a massive world-wide computer network handling virtually all electronic interactions, allowing them to monitor [[GlobalCurrency credit accounts]], videophone calls and so on with impunity. [[LaResistance The Resistance]] employ hackers to "skate" the WEC secured networks, scavenging for information, and extraction specialists to tap into WEC facilities' systems and taking temporary control of the [[TeleportersandTransporters teleporter grids]], allowing Resistance operatives to get in and out of enemy installations quickly and easily. The latter usually involves re-wiring the installation's communications grid to receive and upload data files from and to operatives on the ground, [[DuelingHackers digitally outmatching Consortium "gadget jockeys"]] (the "sniffers on the grid") and [[HollywoodHacking keeping the signal across multiple networks stable, backfeeding comms into power-grids to cause static and shenanigans]].

[[folder: Webcomics]]